Another season of learning begins

Today was the girls first day back to school. On Tuesday we went to Washington for back to school night before dance. Sarah was able to meet most of her teachers, even though she already knows most of them, and take her school supplies. Wednesday after dance we quickly ran up to Whittier for Kristen so that she could meet her teacher Mrs. Matheny. She was also able to take her supplies to school and place them in her desk. She was so excited to see two textbooks already sitting on her desk. Kristen is thrilled to be moving up this year. Second graders move upstairs and join the older kids in the old wing of Whittier and in Kristen's mind this means that she is no longer a little kid.
When I turned on the lights and told the girls to get up at 5:45 this morning they both jumped right out of bed. Today will be the easiest day of the year to wake them both up. Around 9:00 this morning Kurt called to let me know the girls would be getting out of school early. He is the lucky one for the district who gets to decided if school is going to be released due to the heat. His first stop was to check second floor at Washington. While there he saw Sarah and she guessed that he was there to determine if they would be letting out early.
About the time Washington was dismissing a huge storm came in, so all walkers were kept at school and not allowed to leave. About 20 minutes later they release the walkers and one of Sarah's friend's mom offered her a ride home. She called to let me know that she was in and then wanted to know what she should do about Kristen. She decided to walk up to Whittier and take an umbrella so that Kristen didn't get to wet. When she got to Whittier she found out that they wouldn't let Kristen leave until the next storm had passed. Sometimes I wonder where her brain is, when she found out that Kristen wouldn't be released until the storm was passed she walked back home again and then went up to check on Kristen later. Why she didn't stay at Whittier is beyond me. The girls finally got home about an hour after Kristen should have been home. By now Dad was getting worried because Sarah had never bothered to call and check in with him. He even asked our neighbor who also works for the school to check when she got home. In the mean time, the school allowed Kristen to call and say that she was still at school and couldn't leave until the storm passed. We talked to Kristen about next time calling Dad's cell phone instead of home, since no one was at home.
DeWitt also released early, but I had parent, student meetings scheduled all day so didn't get to leave. When I got home, we had to run out to Office Max to buy new school supplies. Apparently the list that was sent home, for Sarah was not accurate and she needed many other things including a flash drive. As crazy as today was, it is nice to be on a schedule again.

Sarah's new room

Sarah has decided that for her home improvement project this year that she will redo her room. She has already painted the room and removed the carpet. We bought her new furniture, actually both girls got new furniture. She has done a good job on deciding where she wants everything to go. As you can see she is having fun transforming her room and also loves her new furniture.

Dance 2007

Last night we finally had the Spring Recital for the girls dance studio. The children's ballet was Fleur de lis", The advanced Ballet was "Fever" and the Tap and Jazz show was "Hello Dolly". Kristen was in the children's ballet she did a good job with the ballet, Kristen was also in the tap and jazz show. Sarah ended up assisting all of the younger kids in the children's ballet, so was on stage for almost all of that show, she was also in Fever and Hello Dolly. The Children's ballet was about a prince and princess strolling through their flower garden. The advanced ballet was not what you would normally think of as a ballet. It was about the animals of the jungle and what they do at night. They only had a couple of lights on the side and the fog machine running during this ballet. The music was from Mannheim Steamroller. Even though this was different I really liked this ballet. Finally the tap and jazz show was Hello Dolly. Yes, this was from the musical by the same name. Since Sarah is in the advanced jazz group she was in the show also quite a bit.

Gracefully aging, not

It happened this morning. Kurt and I were running a few errands while the girls were at the dress rehearsal for the dance recital tonight. Walmart is having a children's carnival with all kinds of fun little games that the kids can play and win those silly little prizes that they like and parents end up throwing away. Anyway, while we were checking out, the cashier suggested that we get our grandchildren and bring them back to the carnival. Considering that my children are only 13 and 7, I really hope that there are no grandchildren for at least 10 years. I do realize that people are age are grandparents already, but I am so not ready for that stage of life yet.